Top Stories 2025
By Josh Stephens
In a perfect world, urban planning and wildfires would scarcely make acquaintance with each other. Settlements would be built far from fuel, with well managed buffer zones. Building materials would be resilient. Escape routes would be clear. And humanity and nature would live in perfect harmony.
Alas.
Last year’s wildfires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena were not the biggest by land area, nor were they the most deadly. They were, though, the most costly, the most destructive (each burned more structures than the previous record-holder), the most urban (moreso than the Oakland or Santa Rosa fires), and, arguably, the most surprising (the dead of winter).
Accordingly, fire coverage dominated California’s news cycle and CP&DR’s readership in 2025. In reviewing the most-read stories on our web site in the past year, we found that two of our top four stories overall were fire coverage:
We Don't Have A Wildfire Crisis. We Have An Everything Crisis.
How Planners Can Help LA Recover -- And Help After Other Disasters Too
And, fire factored into many other stories: the suspension of state laws; innovative, approaches to permitting; and, a national award from the American Planning Association.
Let us hope that CP&DR gets its clicks differently in 2026.
In more conventional news, legislation -- especially SB 79 and other pro-housing bills -- dominated CP&DR’s news coverage and commentary. The single most-viewed article centered on a familiar topic -- parking, and the overabundance thereof -- on a sad occasion, the passing of legendary UCLA professor and bon vivant Donald Shoup. Bill Fulton’s remembrance went viral among the extended Shoupista universe, celebrating the professor’s activism and economic acumen in “Donald Shoup Wasn't Just About Parking. He Was About The Economics Of Public Goods.”
Here are the rest of CP&DR’s top stories of 2025:
News
The legislature’s appetite for housing bills has not waned, and neither has readers’.
Key Wins in Builder’s Remedy Cases Reshape Cities’ Approaches to Housing
Budget Bill Would Expand CEQA Infill Exemption
CP&DR's Quick-And-Dirty Guide to Everything the Legislature Did on Housing and CEQA
Major CEQA Reform Bill Runs Into Trouble
Commentary
Aside from wildfires, here are the top issues on readers’ minds:
Why Hollywood and the Housing Industry Need Each Other
Is The Era of Swiss-Cheese CEQA Over?
How Will SB 79 Affect Local Planning in California?
Frank Gehry's Star Quality Outshined His Urbanism
"Freedom Cities" Won't Liberate California
Legal Digest
For all its reforms, disputes over the California Environmental Quality Act continue their romp across California’s landscape. Plus, a federal Supreme Cour decision with direct local impacts.
Cities Can't Assume Infill Development Reduces VMT
Cities, Housing Advocates Battle Over Builder's Remedy's "90-Day Rule"
Court Rejects MND, Requires EIR To Be Prepared Over Aesthetic Issues
In Sheetz Followup, Court Okays El Dorado County Exactions System
